La Reine

As years passed on, this continual dwelling upon foreign associations,
bred in me a vague prophetic thought, that I was fated, one day or
other, to be a great voyager; and that just as my father used to
entertain strange gentlemen over their wine after dinner, I would
hereafter be telling my own adventures to an eager auditory. And I have
no doubt that this presentiment had something to do with bringing about
my subsequent rovings.

But that which perhaps more than any thing else, converted my vague
dreamings and longings into a definite purpose of seeking my fortune on
the sea, was an old-fashioned glass ship, about eighteen inches long,
and of French manufacture, which my father, some thirty years before,
had brought home from Hamburg as a present to a great-uncle of mine:
Senator Wellingborough, who had died a member of Congress in the days of
the old Constitution, and after whom I had the honor of being named.
Upon the decease of the Senator, the ship was returned to the donor.

It was kept in a square glass case, which was regularly dusted by one of
my sisters every morning, and stood on a little claw-footed Dutch
tea-table in one corner of the sitting-room. This ship, after being the
admiration of my father's visitors in the capital, became the wonder and
delight of all the people of the village where we now resided, many of
whom used to call upon my mother, for no other purpose than to see the
ship. And well did it repay the long and curious examinations which they
were accustomed to give it.

In the first place, every bit of it was glass, and that was a great
wonder of itself; because the masts, yards, and ropes were made to
resemble exactly the corresponding parts of a real vessel that could go
to sea. She carried two tiers of black guns all along her two decks; and
often I used to try to peep in at the portholes, to see what else was
inside; but the holes were so small, and it looked so very dark indoors,
that I could discover little or nothing; though, when I was very little,
I made no doubt, that if I could but once pry open the hull, and break
the glass all to pieces, I would infallibly light upon something
wonderful, perhaps some gold guineas, of which I have always been in
want, ever since I could remember. And often I used to feel a sort of
insane desire to be the death of the glass ship, case, and all, in order
to come at the plunder; and one day, throwing out some hint of the kind
to my sisters, they ran to my mother in a great clamor; and after that,
the ship was placed on the mantel-piece for a time, beyond my reach, and
until I should recover my reason.

I do not know how to account for this temporary madness of mine, unless
it was, that I had been reading in a story-book about Captain Kidd's
ship, that lay somewhere at the bottom of the Hudson near the Highlands,
full of gold as it could be; and that a company of men were trying to
dive down and get the treasure out of the hold, which no one had ever
thought of doing before, though there she had lain for almost a hundred
years.

Not to speak of the tall masts, and yards, and rigging of this famous
ship, among whose mazes of spun-glass I used to rove in imagination,
till I grew dizzy at the main-truck, I will only make mention of the
people on board of her. They, too, were all of glass, as beautiful
little glass sailors as any body ever saw, with hats and shoes on, just
like living men, and curious blue jackets with a sort of ruffle round
the bottom. Four or five of these sailors were very nimble little chaps,
and were mounting up the rigging with very long strides; but for all
that, they never gained a single inch in the year, as I can take my
oath.

Another sailor was sitting astride of the spanker-boom, with his arms
over his head, but I never could find out what that was for; a second
was in the fore-top, with a coil of glass rigging over his shoulder; the
cook, with a glass ax, was splitting wood near the fore-hatch; the
steward, in a glass apron, was hurrying toward the cabin with a plate of
glass pudding; and a glass dog, with a red mouth, was barking at him;
while the captain in a glass cap was smoking a glass cigar on the
quarterdeck. He was leaning against the bulwark, with one hand to his
head; perhaps he was unwell, for he looked very glassy out of the eyes.

The name of this curious ship was La Reine, or The Queen, which was
painted on her stern where any one might read it, among a crowd of glass
dolphins and sea-horses carved there in a sort of semicircle.

And this Queen rode undisputed mistress of a green glassy sea, some of
whose waves were breaking over her bow in a wild way, I can tell you,
and I used to be giving her up for lost and foundered every moment, till
I grew older, and perceived that she was not in the slightest danger in
the world.

A good deal of dust, and fuzzy stuff like down, had in the course of
many years worked through the joints of the case, in which the ship was
kept, so as to cover all the sea with a light dash of white, which if
any thing improved the general effect, for it looked like the foam and
froth raised by the terrible gale the good Queen was battling against.

So much for La Reine. We have her yet in the house, but many of her
glass spars and ropes are now sadly shattered and broken,--but I will not
have her mended; and her figurehead, a gallant warrior in a cocked-hat,
lies pitching headforemost down into the trough of a calamitous sea
under the bows--but I will not have him put on his legs again, till I get
on my own; for between him and me there is a secret sympathy; and my
sisters tell me, even yet, that he fell from his perch the very day I
left home to go to sea on this my first voyage.
(from Melville's Redburn).